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I played around with the numbers on my 38 speedometer. The numbers has pretty flaked off but there was enough of an outline that I was able to scan the glass and using Photoshop I made a picture of the speedo face. I took my file to a vinyl sign shop and had then make up the face in white. I had the image flipped so that the glue side faced me. I carefully got all the bubbles out and the color and brightness (when lit) matched the other gauge numbers very nicely. I guess I'm too cheap to get new glass from that Packard dash glass place that somebody posted in another thread.

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Seems to me I've seen UV sleeves for fluorescent tubes but they probably wouldn't stand up to an incandescent bulb. I figure there must be material still available ... how else did they light up all those discos in the 70's?

One of the prior times this subject came up for discussion, I seem to remember that Randy Berger actually located some Radium paint and redid the numerals etc. on a friend's car.

Yes, I did on friend John's 50 eight. The results were so-so. My memory said the original was MUCH brighter. Perhaps Eric's discovery will give better results.

The filters are actually glass and don't seem to deteriorate, but they do get dirty. I have taken apart and cleaned bathtub instrument clusters with fair results--I always paint the inside of clusters in brilliant gloss white to increase internal reflection. A little bit of very judicious flicking with a dry paint brush will remove some of the dead outer surface of the glow in the dark numbers, and the needles are easily painted with that paint the Eric mentioned. In good shape they sure do look cool with the green numbers against a background of purple glow.

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Yes they do, I have to say it's one of the prettiest instrument illumination devices ever devised.

My dash is fairly dim, but I can see the slight purple glow. Fortunately, my numbers look intact. It's good to know that the filters are glass, and cleaning may do the trick.

My question is, is it better/easier to remove the whole dash, or just the cluster? I have the molding around the windshield out, and can see the six screws across the top. I have eight new 55 bulbs ready to go in...

Thanks!

Joey, it's unlikely that cleaning will restore the original instrument performance, though it may help. IIRC the paint contained trace amounts of a radioactive element, radium as I recall - perhaps the same as was used for years in watch hands and faces. It slowly degrades over time, as defined by it's "half life", like any radioactive element. It's use for luminous illumination was discontinued in the 60s dues to health concerns for the workers who painted the instruments, etc.

Here's a discussion about it's use in such applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium

Don't know if anybody is still curious, but my dash is disassembled and I attached a pic in my post . The filters are glass, I think, and they appear absolutely black.
Also, the numbers are recessed into the back of the plastic lens,kind of like one would route out a piece of wood. So, I think it will be a fairly simple process to repaint the numbers. The needles (at least on the small quad gauges), I think will be a bigger problem, as they seem flimsy and quite bendable...
Kelly

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Dave,

By cleaning, I just meant the black light glass filters to improve the effects of the uv light. All my gauges work well exept the speedo, which has a broken cable.

I plan on referring to Kevin's blog for the clock repair.